State Plows Through Budget To Maintain Montana Roads This Winter

With winter showing no signs of abating any time soon, Montana has already plowed through the money set aside by the state Department of Transportation's Maintenance Division to keep our roads passable. The challenge for officials is finding the money to keep the plows and sanding trucks operating until temperatures warm up.

Montana typically spends up to $21 million during the winter to sand, deice and plow the roads. The money comes from the state gas tax.

An army of 600 full time and 150 temporary snow plow operators are deployed to tend the 25-thousand miles of roads for which the state is responsible.

As of the second week of February, the money budgeted for winter maintenance is just about gone. But there since there's no indication snow and ice are a memory, Transportation Maintenance Director Jon Swartz must tap funding from other parts of the budget to keep the plows on the road.

“What we will end up doing is look at items in our budget that we can push off," he said. "The biggest things is road repair budget to after July 1 (the start of the next fiscal year)to offset the budget overruns in winter maintenance.”

The Montana Department of Transportation reports that traffic fatalities are outpacing this same period last year. That’s even before the start to the traditional summer driving season which begins with the Memorial Day weekend.

MDT Director Mike Tooley says as of May 16, 2016, 61 people, or 19 ahead of the same period last year, have lost their lives in vehicle crashes in Montana.

A bill to increase the fuel tax continues to advance down the road as the Legislative session is moving closer to adjournment.

“And I find myself in the middle of Montana in the 65th Legislative Session in a very odd position where I feel the need to quote Mick Jagger,” said Representative Frank Garner, R-Kalispell. “And that is you don’t always get what you want.”